Navigation systems are well known that calculate transportation routes and/or guidance from a current geographical location of a vehicle to a destination. Commonly, navigation systems operate in conjunction with a vehicle positioning system (e.g., without limitation, a GPS-based system) so as to track the location of the vehicle as it advances along the planned route and to redirect the vehicle as needed and/or recalculate an alternate route if it deviates from the planned route. The navigation system commonly includes a display for illustrating maps of the planned route or segments thereof (e.g., without limitation, road or street maps) and the vehicle's position along the planned route or segments. The navigation system may also display speed metrics such as speed limits, distances and/or projected arrival times associated with a route or segments thereof. Still further, the navigation system might also display information on nearby points of interest such as restaurants, fueling or charging stations or the like, including routing and distance information, typically upon customer request.
A problem that arises, is that as a vehicle advances along a planned route, it may encounter delays due to periodic traffic congestion (e.g., rush hour traffic, traffic jams or the like) that the driver may wish to avoid, and which may cause the driver to seek a better, more time-efficient route. A navigation system might inform the vehicle of delays along the planned route or segments thereof and may even redirect the vehicle to an alternative route; however, calculation (or re-calculation, as the case may be) of the route plan is accomplished based on static traffic state information. That is, a navigation system will provide a route plan or alternative route based on traffic conditions observed at a present time or based on nominal speed metrics at a present time (i.e., the time at which the route plan is calculated), but without consideration of traffic conditions projected to occur at a later time. In some instances, particularly those in which traffic conditions characterizing a first traffic state may be expected to evolve to a second, more favorable traffic state after a period of time, it would be advantageous for a navigation system to provide a route plan or alternative route based at least in part on the second traffic state. For example, in instances of rush hour traffic or traffic jams, one may predict that traffic conditions will evolve to a more favorable state in a matter of several minutes, or a few hours, and time-efficiencies may be realized by navigating the vehicle in the more favorable state for at least a portion of a route plan or alternative route. Realization of such time-efficiencies may provide opportunities for arbitrary customer activities (e.g., refueling or recharging of a vehicle) at point(s) of interest along a route plan or alternative route while awaiting traffic conditions to evolve to the second state.